The Mistletoe: A Companion Piece
by dwparsnip
Summary: An extra little addition set around my fic, 'The Mistletoe'. Six months or so after the events in that fic, a song brings back some memories.


Hey there to all. I've had this on my computer for years, but for reasons that only my muse can explain I fixed it up and decided to post it. :) It's a companion piece to my fic 'The Mitletoe'. Not so much a sequel, just a little extra I guess. If you haven't read it, you may want to. I really don't think you need to though.

Thanks to Sphersian for suggesting the song that was the inspiration for this…it's at the end.

Harmony Gold owns Robotech, not me. Hasn't been run through a beta, so all mistakes are mine.

* * *

Max Sterling stood off to the side of the crowded dance floor and watched the numerous dancing pairs with a detached interest. If he were to be completely truthful with himself, he was really concentrating very hard on a plan to get the hell out of Dodge.

Unfortunately, the plan was not coming together as quickly- and therefore successfully- as he had hoped it would. It was all bad enough to be stuck at this formal REF ball without Miriya, but to watch the happy couples snuggling as they slow danced around the dance floor was agonizing.

It did, of course, make his own solitude that much more glaring. Miriya had gone up to the Factory Satellite to help with some technical details concerning the integration of Zentraedi mecha and pilots into the REF forces. They'd had years to get it done, yet there were still problems that kept popping up and made his head want to explode.

Ordinarily Miriya's absence would have given him just the excuse that he would have needed to avoid this party- and he used the term loosely. With Miriya gone he usually would have had to look after Dana. It was not to be for this time, however. At the request of Breetai and Exedore, Miriya took Dana, his darling daughter and would be 'get out of formal REF function free card' with her.

And that was how Max found himself in his current predicament. Rick and Lisa had both insisted that he come. Lisa's angle had been Rick. She said he needed to be there to keep Rick company, and perhaps even keep him out of trouble, while she had to rub elbows with the rest of the brass and the politicos, which Rick despised more than just about anything on and off the planet.

Rick's angle had been one of duty. It was Max's duty, he'd said, as Skull Leader and SDF-3 CAG to attend this function. It was his duty to set an example; to show his support for these young men and women, and to show the flag and all that rot. Max was tempted to tell Rick where to stick that flag, but in the end he saw the truth in what his friend and superior officer was saying. Plus he just couldn't ignore the sad, puppy dog eyes Rick had given him.

So, like a good little soldier that he was he donned the cursed dress uniform and tried to look interested through the long-winded speeches. (Lisa at least had kept hers short…it was actually more of a toast.) And he tried to look happy in the face of the men and women of the REF as they reveled in the festivity of it all while he stewed in his own misery.

Max glanced around as an upbeat song played, and the beginning of a smile twitched in his lips as he saw Lisa all but bounce over to Rick and grab him by the arm. The smile became more pronounced as a petrified expression came over Rick's face, and his smile became a full-fledged, toothy grin when Lisa dragged his friend onto the dance floor.

_Looks good on him,_ thought Max with more than a little satisfaction that at least some sort of cosmic justice had been meted out on Rick. After only a few seconds into the dance, it became easily apparent to all why Rick didn't want to dance. _How can such a good pilot with incredible reflexes have such bad coordination on the dance floor?_ Max asked himself. He thought back and only now realized that in all the time he'd known Rick, he had never seen him dance a fast dance before. Sure he'd danced with Lisa before, many times, but never a fast dance. Max filed that information away for future use as blackmail material- it was worth at least a couple of hours of fun at Rick's expense.

The song finally ended, and for Rick mercifully, and everyone began leaving the dance floor. For some reason, Rick and Lisa lingered until they were almost alone, breathing a little heavily and looking at each other with the sort of passion that made Max feel a little guilty about watching.

Max looked on as they smiled softly at each other, and he couldn't help but notice the looks of envy and joy on the faces of those watching his friends.

The music started up again and out of reflex he tried to identify the song, but he drew a blank. It began with just some piano play. It wasn't a fast-paced song, nor was it a traditional slow dance ballad, though it was closer to the latter than the former, and he couldn't remember hearing it before. When he turned his attention back to Rick and Lisa alarm bells rang very loudly in his head.

Lisa's face had turned slightly red, and from Max's vantage point it looked as though her eyes were glistening with unshed tears. Rick had frozen in his place with his mouth slightly open in a look that Max could only describe as shock. Max instinctively took a step towards the two of them, the urge to help and protect them ingrained into his being, when the first words of the song sounded and stopped him cold. The words jogged his memory and the realization that he did indeed know the song felt like a kick to his stomach. The further recollection that both his friends most definitely knew the song and that it affected them both deeply multiplied the power of that figurative kick tenfold.

Max focused on the song and listened to the words as the singer said, _'…he must have really hurt you bad….'_ He took a quick step towards the DJ with the intention of…well, he didn't know what he was going to do, but he had to do something.

Movement caught his eye bringing him to a halt and he noticed with some relief that Rick had recovered from his shock and moved quickly, though not too hastily, to Lisa and took her in his arms, setting them up so that it looked as though they were going to dance. Rick leaned in close and said something to Lisa, who nodded once and then they started to move around the floor in a semi-slow waltz.

Max had all sorts of curse words roaming through his mind to describe the unfortunate turn the evening had taken. The only one that made it past his lips, however, was a very soft spoken, "Damn."

Then however, the damnedest thing happened, something that told Max that everything would be all right.

Lisa smiled.

* * *

Despite the fact that the ball was formal and he was dressed up in his least favorite outfit ever, the much and rightfully maligned REF dress uniform, Admiral Rick Hunter was having a good time. He and Lisa had agreed with Reinhardt that the REF needed something to boost morale a little bit after years of hard work getting the REF ready and months of deadly Malcontent attacks. Where his and Lisa's opinions diverged from Reinhardt's was in agreeing to what that something was.

Rick and Lisa preferred a more casual gathering where people could let their hair down and cut loose a little. A party…a real party where a stressed out pilot, over worked engineer, run-ragged tech and burned out flag officer could just be a person having a good time with other people regardless of rank or station. Booze, loud music, food, dancing…

A PARTY.

Reinhardt had favored a more formal setting, where people could associate with each other without fear of a bar room brawl and without having to strain their ears and voice boxes to have a conversation. He'd wanted something where the senior officers could say a few inspiring words to their subordinates, yet still maintain their distance if the need arose.

To say Lisa had been livid would have been the understatement to end all understatements. She'd felt that the whole point was to try to show the lower ranks that they were all in this together; that it didn't matter what rank they held, they were all needed to make the expedition a success. They were all human beings going out into space to make peace or to fight the good fight if it came to that.

Rick smiled as he remembered the day that Lisa stood up amongst her peers, most of whom, though not all, she outranked. She argued those facts with all the passion within her soul and he couldn't help but love her more for it. In fact, the only other times he had ever seen her so passionate was when she was alone with him and they were making love.

It had been more than a little arousing.

Even thinking about that now made him automatically search for her with his eyes. The search didn't take long. He found her twenty feet away talking to some of the SDF-3 flight crew who had congregated at an out of the way table. Rick sighed in wonderment as she laughed and talked with them as though she were one of them, or more to the point, as though they were equal to her. That quality, the ability to make everyone feel at ease around her, was something she had in spades. It simply came naturally to her.

_Maistroff and a few more of those guys could certainly learn a lesson or two from Lisa,_ thought Rick with an inward chuckle, knowing full well the ludicrousness of the thought.

For a moment he caught her eye, and for that moment they were the only people in the room. Every positive emotion moved between them. Pride in each other, love for each other, desire, trust…everything.

It was then that one of Lisa's favorite dance songs blared through the speakers. It was one of the concessions that Lisa had won, that music be played after the formalities had been dispensed with. Rick looked on in a near panic as Lisa said something to her companions and stood up, looking at him like he was a deer caught in her headlights, which he imagined was exactly how he looked…and was beginning to feel for that matter.

She walked towards him, and despite the trepidation he was feeling he couldn't help but be awed by her confident stride, the mischievous twinkle in her emerald eyes and the way her hair flowed about her as she walked towards him.

"Let's dance," she said merrily as she took his arm in her right hand and Rick couldn't help but wonder when it was that her grip had become iron-like in nature.

"Lisa…" he tried but was cut off when a very hard tug on his arm had him moving against his will onto the dance floor.

Rick felt the sweat pop out on his brow as the horrid reality of his situation began to sink in. He sighed, deciding to accept the inevitable in order to save some face, and began to do what he passed off as dancing. He was a big boy, and could admit that he couldn't dance to anything upbeat or fast paced. Give him something slow and he could dance circles around most, but this…

Ignoring Lisa's eyes and the amusement he knew had to be in sparkling in them, he danced, blissfully ignorant of the amused looks he was garnering from those watching…especially Max. A quick peek off to the right made Rick wish he had never coaxed Max into coming.

Damn.

A second later something brought his attention crashing with light speed force back to the dance floor and more to the point his dance partner who, while he had been daydreaming, managed to edge closer without him noticing and brush her left hip against his left hip.

Rick watched as a playful smirk graced her perfect lips, and he became mesmerized with her movements. Lisa was graceful with even the most mundane of tasks without trying, but when she danced and she wanted to let people see her…

Rick couldn't keep his eyes off her, yet he couldn't limit his gaze to just one part of her. His eyes moved from her eyes to her shoulders which were bobbing up and down, forward and backward to the beat of the music in an alternating rhythm; down to her perfectly rounded breasts which, naturally, had just enough room inside the tight dress uniform to teasingly wiggle as her shoulders moved; up to those curvy lips and down to her supple thighs, and it was then he stopped pretending that he was doing anything other than admiring her…all of her.

The song finally ended and Rick found out with a quick survey that he wasn't the only male in the room whose gaze was fixed upon his better half. While the knowledge pricked his possessive self, it also gave him a sense of pride in knowing that the woman he loved could really hold people's attention, not just with her physical beauty, but with what she had inside as well.

He was only vaguely aware of everyone else leaving the dance floor…his eyes were right where they were supposed to be: focused on Lisa. She was breathing heavily from her workout, and he noticed a bead or two of perspiration on her forehead. He too, was a little breathless and sweating a little for reasons that had more to do biology and physical attraction than his 'dancing'.

Rick smiled at Lisa, and she smiled back at him…a warm and loving smile, tinged on the edges with the perfect amount of eroticism that never failed to send his heart into a flutter.

Rick was about to step towards Lisa when the first notes of a new song reached his ears.

There were those who said that Rick Hunter was a dense man, typical in the sense that he rarely understood the magnitude of situations that involved feelings and the like. There were those who said this most emphatically, in fact. While that was true for the most part, there were times when Rick showed enormous insight and clarity of thought regarding emotional situations. A few of those times were centered around Lisa and a particularly painful experience that he had caused her.

It had been six months since they had mutually declared that part of their lives as over and inconsequential to their future. And it had been years since he'd heard that song…

Out of nowhere in no time flat Lisa's face fell and the soft light was reflecting off the unshed tears in her eyes. Rick closed his mouth, which had fallen open with shock, and he walked purposefully to the woman he loved.

With a gentleness that most people were unaware that he possessed, Rick put his arms around Lisa. His embrace was everything it had to be: loving, warm, reassuring and protective. He felt her respond immediately in the form of her laying her head on his right shoulder and slipping her arms around his waist.

Rick tilted his head towards hers and whispered quietly, and confidently, towards her ear. "Dance with me?"

Lisa nodded and they moved apart enough to set up a waltz. Rick tried with all his might to convey to Lisa through his touch, his voice and his eyes that this was unimportant…that this was nothing to them. He believed that with all of his soul.

Then he hoped equally as hard that she believed the same thing.

He wasn't entirely sure that she believed that at all, but then something happened that convinced him otherwise.

Lisa smiled.

* * *

Admiral Lisa Hayes was the highest-ranking officer left at the ball, as the rest of the brass had all scurried off like frightened rats abandoning a sinking ship when the music started. That is all the other brass except Rick.

Thinking of Rick made her smile warmly as she made her way around the edge of the dance floor to a table that looked like it had an insurmountable lead in the "Quietest Table in the Room" contest. She recognized most of the people there as being from the flight deck, and it seemed as though they were having a very somber time of it. From her short distance away she saw that the group consisted of three women and three men.

She finally arrived at the table and a couple of the greener crewmembers began to stand, but she waved them off. "This is a party, ladies and gentlemen. No one has any rank here tonight." She dramatically looked over her shoulder to where the brass had been sitting and then turned back to the table at large, adding in a hushed voice and with a conspiratorial wink, "At least there isn't now."

Everyone around the table broke out in laughter and Lisa laughed with them. When the laughter subsided moments later she looked to around the table and asked, "Mind if I join you?"

She laughed internally at the surprised, shocked and, in one case, flabbergasted looks she got. She had to clamp down on her lips to keep from giggling out loud when a couple of them actually had to physically shake themselves out of their little funk her question had caused to answer her.

After a chorus of "Yes, ma'am"s and "Of course, ma'am"s, Lisa lowered herself into the only vacant chair and smiled at each of them.

Her gaze settled on one of the young faces, a young female crewmember that Lisa knew through the grapevine to be the shyest of the group. "Having a good time, Lauren?" asked Lisa sincerely. She knew what it was like to feel out of place at a party, and she easily saw the signs of discomfort in the rigid posture and strained facial expression of the young woman.

Again, Lisa had to keep the smile that wanted to show on her lips from doing exactly that. The young girl blushed something fierce, and Lisa almost felt bad for singling her out. Almost. She knew that someone had to shake the young woman out of her timidity, and Lisa was just the person to do it, much as Claudia had done for her back in their academy days.

Finally Lauren responded. "Yes…ma'am."

Lisa smiled as warmly as she knew how, which only made the younger woman blush more. "That's good to hear." Her eyes swept around the table. "And everyone else?"

Everyone at the table nodded affirmatively and Lisa let loose a little laugh and nodded in satisfaction. "Good." Her brow knitted in contemplation. "But I don't recall seeing any of you out dancing yet." Her face took on a false scolding look as she added, "This is a party after all."

Lauren looked mortified, but Lisa trudged on. She knew the song that was currently playing was nearing its end and she got an idea. "I'll make a deal with all of you. When the next song starts up, you will all go out and dance." She deliberately flashed a look to Lauren, who almost appeared to be on the verge of throwing up. "I won't make it an order, as I'm already on the record as saying that there is no rank here tonight. BUT, if you all go out there, I will promise to show you something that will make you all laugh so hard that you may never forget about it." She looked around and saw exactly what she wanted to see in everyone's eyes, especially Lauren's: piqued curiosity.

Lisa smiled wickedly and leaned forward to reiterate her promise, "Trust me…just watch Rick."

Everyone at the table nodded, and Lisa was relieved to see Lauren among them. Out of the corner of her eye, Lisa saw Rick looking at her lovingly. She turned to look at him, and for an instant she almost regretted her plan. Her eyes held his and everything seemed to fade away…including her plan. She was just about to reconsider when the song ended and the next one started up. Luckily enough, it was a fast paced song, and ironically enough one of her favorites.

"Let's go," she said to the table and she silently thanked one of the male members of the table when he grabbed Lauren's hand and helped her out of her seat.

Lisa initiated her plan by heading straight for her victim: Rick. The look on his face as she strode towards him was priceless…he looked absolutely terrified.

She approached him and said in all joviality, "Let's dance." She gripped his arm and held on tightly, half expecting him to make a run for it in whatever direction he could, as long as it was away from the dance floor. To her surprise he didn't move at all, at least not until she began to drag him onto the dance floor after he said her name in the most pathetically pleading manner that he could.

Lisa wasn't going to give it up now, no matter how much he begged and pleaded. Not only did she want to do this to help one of her crew, a young bashful woman who reminded Lisa of her younger self in many ways, but now she was actually looking forward to dancing with Rick.

He looked so adorably out of place on the dance floor with all the other couples moving more or less gracefully, and when beads of perspiration appeared out of nowhere on his face Lisa had to work hard, once again, to keep her laughter in check.

A look of resignation came over Rick's face, and he finally and ever so slowly began to move around. Out of the corner of her eye she could see several of the flight crew she made the deal with, including Lauren, and they were all observing Rock and smiling widely. _She's a good dancer,_ thought Lisa of Lauren. _Maybe I should get her to give Rick some lessons._

She switched her attention back to the love of her life and nearly let loose a snort of laughter. He wasn't even looking at her, and all things considered that was probably a good thing, because if she'd looked in a mirror she was pretty sure she'd find a very large grin on her lips.

Lisa moved gracefully to the beat and rhythm of the music, easily matching both with her movements. Rick was still avoiding her eyes so she decided that a little fun was in order and she moved towards him until she was right beside him. He was so caught up in his embarrassment that he didn't even notice.

That is until she deliberately swung her hip toward his until they touched, sending a spark of electricity spreading outward in her body in all directions from the impact point. It apparently had a similar effect on Rick as turned towards her so fast that she thought he could have gotten whiplash. Lisa let the right side of her mouth edge upward in challenge and kept dancing, feeling the music and joining with it.

She could sense his eyes on her, and a quick look confirmed it. It also confirmed to her that he was feeling the exact same thing that she was feeling…desire. He was watching her like the proverbial hawk, his eyes constantly moving about her entire body and seeing all. That she was the object of his want and desire was erotic enough for her…it always had been and probably always would be. When he stopped dancing, or pretending to dance, she knew she had him…and he in turn had her.

When the song ended Lisa looked at Rick and smiled. She was breathing a little harder than she was used to after one dance, and she attributed it to thinking about Rick in the way that she was thinking about him.

The dance floor emptied, and as Lauren and her friends passed by they nodded to Lisa with enormous smiles on their faces, and Lauren's dance partner mouthed a "Thank you" to her as he passed. The knowledge that she'd helped Lauren just a little bit warmed her heart, just as the rest of her was being warmed by the incredibly hungry look that Rick was giving her.

She returned his smile and felt the same thing that she always felt when they looked at each other that way. Immediately plans and back up plans to get them home began running through her mind.

She was on Plan C when a new song began playing…a slower song that seemed vaguely familiar…

_Oh my God…not now, _she pleaded internally. It was that song, the song that reminded her so much of a time that was best left in the past, where she and Rick had so recently decided to keep it. From the look on his face, he realized what song it was as well.

Lisa felt the tears come to her eyes and she fought as hard as she ever had to keep them from spilling out onto her cheeks. A cold shiver ran through her body. It had just reached her toes when she felt Rick's arms slip ever so gently around her, immediately warding off the chill and enveloping her in his warmth. She rested her head on his shoulder, trying to show him her appreciation at his simple yet powerful gesture.

"Dance with me?" he said softly in her ear.

Lisa nodded against his shoulder and then stepped back slightly so that they could dance. Rick's hands were gentle against her body, yet oh so confident and reassuring at the same time. And when she looked up into his handsome blue eyes, she saw nothing but support and love.

And she smiled…

End.

* * *

Here's the inspiration for this, as suggested by my friend, Sphersian.

'He Must Have Really Hurt You Bad' by George Strait.

_You put your best red dress on  
And came here tonight all alone  
He must have really hurt you bad_

_Ordered up a double Coke and rum  
And hope it'll turn into fun  
He must have really hurt you bad_

_I don't know your story but it ain't hard to see  
You've got a heart that's broken as a heart can be  
It's probably not like you at all  
To mix loneliness and alcohol  
He must have really hurt you bad_

_Now it's 1am and here you are  
With some stranger at the bar  
He must have really hurt you bad_

_Across town in some motel room  
He'll try to heal your past  
While the one that's lying next to you is  
Only there for laughs  
He must have really hurt you bad_

_Now, I'm the Joe that sees you up then cuts you off  
And calls a cab when you need me to  
And I'd like to say that only once in a while  
I see someone goin' what you're goin' through_

_Well, I need the tips, but I'll be all right  
If I don't see you tomorrow night  
Stay home girl  
He must have really hurt you bad_

_He must have really hurt you bad_


End file.
